Former UN Envoy: Europe Should Learn From Israel’s Counter-Terrorism ‘Experience, Expertise’

Israel has addressed various and evolving methods of terrorism over the decades, each time with harsh criticism from the international community – which is now increasingly experiencing the carnage wrought by Islamist radicals.

By: The Algemeiner

Where global terrorism in general — and its recent manifestations in particular — are concerned, the Jewish state “has experience and expertise to share,” wrote Israel’s former UN ambassador on Monday.

In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Ron Prosor – who has also served as Israeli ambassador to the UK – said that “expressions of sympathy and solidarity” with the victims of the truck-ramming attack in Nice on Thursday night, which left at least 84 people dead and more than 300 wounded, and other such bloody incidents “aren’t enough. As the terrorist threat evolves, so, too, must our response.”

Prosor, who holds the Abba Eban Chair for International Affairs at IDC Herzliya and is a distinguished fellow at the Washington, DC-based Hudson Institute, continued:

In Nice, the use of a truck as the murder weapon shows how terrorism is constantly developing new ways to inflict mass casualties.

Israel has bitter experience of this. The devastation in Nice was on a vast scale, but the method of attack is painfully familiar. Since October, 44 terrorist attacks have used motor vehicles as a weapon against Israelis.

Indeed, he argued in the piece — titled “Israel’s Counterterrorism Lessons for Europe” — the perpetrators of stabbing and vehicular assaults “no longer…need training camps, bomb-making expertise or even an order. All they need is an internet connection, incitement and the desire to kill.”

Prosor went on to vindicate the way in which Israel has addressed and kept up with various and evolving methods of terrorism over the decades, each time with harsh criticism from the international community – which is now increasingly experiencing the carnage wrought by Islamist radicals.

When Palestinian terror groups pioneered plane hijacking, Israel pioneered rigorous security procedures for our airports and airlines. At the time, we were accused of undermining freedoms and criminalizing the innocent. Few would question the need for those procedures today.

When Israel first used drones to target terrorist leaders, we were accused of “extrajudicial killing.” Today these techniques are widely used in the fight against Islamic State and al Qaeda…

When, in 2014, a Palestinian terrorist attempted to ram his car into Israelis at a bus stop, he was stopped by a concrete bollard… Other countries now place bollards outside high-profile targets — at the White House in Washington, Westminster in London and high-risk embassies in major cities around the world.

Today, Prosor contended — returning to the example of the Bastille Day massacre last week –“[W]hen the enemy views children watching fireworks as a target, we need to adapt again.”

The “adaptation” he suggested is multi-faceted, involving practices geared towards “greater agility and speed against potential terrorists” before they commit their attacks. These practices, he said, include providing increased resources to intelligence agencies, and profiling those deemed most likely to be radicalized.

In addition, he concluded, social media outlets must join in the battle; Muslims, Christians and Jews must be given frameworks for presenting a united front against Islamist terrorism; and, “Finally, the General Assembly of the United Nations should conduct a special session to bring nations and communities of all faiths together, openly and honestly, to do what is necessary to defeat this evil. Islamist terror targets us all, and together we must fight back.”